Illicit Relations
"...nnnh..."
"Morning." He rubbed his eyes and turned over. Light was battering its unholy way through the curtains.
"...What time's it?" Something that could've been a shrug.
"Don't know, don't care." There was a sudden flurry of movement as he spotted the clock and correspondingly stormed out of bed.
"No, what ti - shit!" He made a desperate attempt to find his own clothes on the floor, then settled for snatching a new set from the closet. "Shit, shit, shi...why didn't the alarm go off?" He paused in sudden suspicion, eyes moving back to the bed. Its inhabitant smiled at him seraphically from between clouds of duvet.
"I switched it off, it was annoying me." The first party ground to a halt, incredulous, with one foot in a pair of jeans.
"You - you what?"
"Switched it off," the other repeated, still smirking. "Some of us don't have to be up until three, you know."
"God damn it, I'm two hours late for work...!" The jeans proved uncooperative, and rather than providing a floorshow by trying any further to get into them, he pulled on a sweatshirt and sat down on the end of the bed, scowling at the window. "They're going to fire me now," he stated morosely, after a minute or two. The other, resigning himself to being disturbed from rest, sat halfway up and regarded him unsympathetically.
"No they're not." He turned slightly, still scowling.
"They are. And it is, inequivocably, your fault." This earned him a marginal narrowing of eyes.
"Oh, stop whinging. Any idiot could tell it's my fault." He watched the other roll over onto his belly, twisting the duvet and waving a hand carelessly as he continued. "...Anyway, they can't fire you. I'm blackmailing your boss." Garland, as the first party liked to be known, felt his eyebrows do a disbelieving tango. He was momentarily lost for words.
"...Good Lord," he ventured after some time, "Surely you don't actually care about me keeping a job I've worked hard to acquire and value as part of my life?" The other shook his head, staring happily at the fishtank in the next room.
"Well, no. But you'd only mutter ceaselessly about it being my fault - again - if you lost it, so I thought I'd spare myself the hassle. Besides, your boss is a pervert. He - " Garland held up a hand warningly.
"I don't need to hear it." There was a pause. A car grumbled down the street outside. Garland shook his own head, and turned fully to sit cross-legged on the edge of the mattress. "...I don't like you."
"Mmhmm. I know."
"Actually, I'm increasingly sure I hate you."
"I hate you too." The lack of reaction, more than anything, was what annoyed him at that moment.
"You're an emotionally mutilated, soul-destroying harpie," he said, matter-of-factly. The other shifted to smile at him.
"And you are so ridiculously closeted that you repress me just by being in the same room." He sighed; this kind of thing was tiring.
"...And every time I do venture into a room with you convinces me more that you need to take yourself to a mental hospital before you either murder someone or hurl yourself off a building." The smile looked genuinely pleased, which was what irritated him. Sarcasm he could have understood. "...Why the hell did we even start this?" The other snorted.
"We?" He tilted his head in acquiescence.
"Alright, why did this even start. I'm not going to pin the blame on either of us." A few seconds' silence; some rather treacherous eyes considered him.
"...I'd guess it's because you couldn't entertain a woman if your life depended on it?" Garland attempted to ward off an imminent migrane, massaging his temples with both hands. It didn't work.
"Then why the hell are you here? I could have gone with Mystel. At least he's a reasonable human being." The other shrugged, still staring at him cheerfully.
"Could have, should have, would have, whatever. You chose to end up with the - what was it, soul-destroying harpie. Mm." He hummed contemplatively for a moment.
"That still doesn't explain why you're here, unless you're trying to put all the blame on me. Not that that'd be a surprise, necessarily..." A laugh.
"Oh no, not at all. I'm here because Hiro's away on business in Egypt for six months, and he told me I could entertain myself any way I liked." He tapped his chin with one finger. "I decided to start a blatantly doomed and unhealthy relationship. You know, so I'll have something to tell him about when he comes back." Garland blinked wordlessly into a lens flare of smile.
"My God. You really are a harpie, aren't you?"
"It's the wings, they always give it away. Hehehe..." The older of the two shook his head. "...No. If I was that mean, I'd, I don't know, acquire herpes somewhere and let you share the joy." He raised an eyebrow.
"That sounds like something you'd do."
"Nuh uh." The finger stopped tapping, and waved at him reproachfully. It was a skinny, bone-white digit and he really wanted to snap it in half. Sadly, he had the feeling that doing so would cause him more trouble than satisfaction, and he happened to be right. "No, I wouldn't do that."
"Why not, did you finally contract morals from watching too many cartoons?"
"No. The thing is...the thing is, Garland, that vanity is forever. You, on the other hand, are temporary." He rolled onto his back contentedly, eyes half-closed. Garland slumped backwards so that the other body lay beside him.
"...You're despicable."
"Hehe. It'll make my day if you demand that I shoot you now. Worth waking up for, probably."
"Thanks." A noncomittal nod, the first movement in several minutes.
"Any time. But if I'm so despicable, why don't you kick me out, or drag me off to that mental hospital you're always talking about? Mm?" Garland favoured the ceiling with a wry expression. "...I think," the younger of the two informed him authoratatively, pushing himself up on one elbow, "That you're a masochist." He sat up, finally managing to look at his bed-partner and finding himself at least aesthetically pleased.
"I suppose it fits, then, what with you being unfailingly sadistic." He was disappointed to note the eyes were still pretty when glaring at him. The colour of a mildly discontented sea, with lashes like a giraffe's, long and dark and straight. They'd turn to persuasion on a whim.
"That's not fair. I'm not sadistic to animals. But I like animals, and therein lies the difference."
"True." Garland had to acquiesce this point.
"Anyway, if you're the masochist and I'm the sadist, why are you always the one on top?" He smiled, briefly, and gave the only answer conceivable.
"Because you're a bitch."
"Oh yes, I forgot that." Garland was getting more than fed up. He scowled impatiently.
"How's it possible to forget being such a horrible person?"
"Why, do you want me to teach you?" The other laughed at him giddily for several seconds, then stopped abruptly, staring up towards him. " - Ah, but you still want me."
"Shut up." It was with a definite air of inevitability that Garland moved, raised both hands, and roughly pushed the other backwards, straddling his waist and pinning one thin wrist to the mattress with each hand. The resultant clawing, squirming and kicking were duly ignored. He leaned down. "You're trying to drive me as insane as you are," he snarled, voice tilting towards venomous, "God damn it, Brooklyn, I don't know why the hell I put up with you."
"Oh. I do." A short, quiet laugh. "It's because your life sucks - " He smirked into the forceful, oppressing kiss " - And I'm not as terrible a person as you'd have me believe."
"Oh, really now."
"Mm." The seraphic smile returned, at full force, as Garland finally pulled away enough to see it. "...I just like people to think I am."
Hehehe. So who's a horrible person? It could be either. Or both. Or Hiro and Mystel, for letting it ever happen. Or, it could be feather-duster for writing the whole thing.
And judging by the swirling vortex of doom that's just appeared over feather-duster's house, we appear to have reached a verdict! Review and I love you, possibly from beyond the grave!